POETRY

Progress for Some

Published by SALT Weekly, 2022

Pearl sticker on Spring Street and

Dickerson Pike.

A man hunched over his car 

Needing a new tire. Maybe

That tire wipes him out

Financially. 

Maybe he feels that ache in the 

Heart, weary of history repeating

Shot after shot. Knee on his neck

Not literally, but he screams 

Inside. Can’t breathe in this

So called society.

Even on gray days, flags wave like tin 

soldiers for the USA and Tennessee at 

car lots along Dickerson Pike. Driving along, 

It feels and breathes as though I’m living in a 

small town, with all the elements. 

Multiple trailer parks. Land suddenly for sale. 

Remnants of an old restaurant, produce stands, and 

Picket’s Fireworks stand behind the big house,

Now covered in graffiti, now demolished. 

The road is pockmarked. 

Waits for a new job corps,

Infrastructure plan. 

Everyone and everything seems to be waiting for 

something else. For the bus. The change that is 

bound to come, we hope, progress. 

Where will the tornados take us waiting in the 

trailer parks? 

Wild roses and delightful names for 

streets, misnomers pointing to ancient ideology. 

The home. We are home, waiting for that squeaky 

wheel to kick in. Meanwhile, look out for people 

walking alongside the road without sidewalks. 

Ambulances and fire trucks mean you stop and 

let them squeal past. 

All the elements are here, the 

makings and magic of progress. Otherwise the 

Wild West will envelop Dickerson Pike. 

One day it 

might look like progress for some. 

If not for the 

people here now, 

where do they go? 

All along the road, 

so many stories untold.